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Okay, here's the deal:

A month ago, while I was walking home, I was attacked.

The whole story gets long and complicated, but at one point I was running for my life, literally -- chased, and soon outrun, by a man in a ski mask who said, "I'm going to kill you," and he took a swing at me -- hitting me in the forehead with the butt end of a pistol, opening up a 4 cm gash in my forehead -- I kept running, he for some reason did not -- I called 911 on my cell, had a difficult time seeing from the blood in my eyes.

I eventually talked to a police detective, and at one point I asked her, "Do you think this has anything to do with gang violence?"

She said, "I wouldn't be surprised."

So -- I had to get stitches, internal ones which will dissolve away over time, and external ones which came out after a week.
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The physical and psychological wounds as a result of this were ugly and horrible. But both wounds been healing, and now that a month has passed I feel like I'm getting my face back, and my self back.

A couple of doctors have told me that the scar should heal to the point that it's almost not noticeable (the tremendous blood supply to the forehead, which can make gashes particularly theatrical, also makes them more likely to heal well). My hope is that the psychological scar will work the same way.

I'm not naive, though -- I know I have to be proactive about it.
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I couldn't write for awhile, because I felt like if I simply posted the more light and trivial sorts of things I usually post that I was, in a sense, denying something very important. So here you go. I might revisit this subject, but now I can get back to light and trivial.

It hasn't been all clouds. I've received a huge amount of support from family and friends, and there is no way to express how tremendously important that has been. Especially Jenny. I have the best woman in the world.